blasphemy

148:9.3When the Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem, to­gether with other scribes and lawyers who sat with them, heard this pro­nounce­ment by Je­sus, they be­gan to say to them­selves: “How dare this man thus speak? Does he not un­der­stand that such words are blas­phemy? Who can for­give sin but God?” Je­sus, per­ceiv­ing in his spirit that they thus rea­soned within their own minds and among them­selves, spoke to them, say­ing: “Why do you so rea­son in your hearts? Who are you that you sit in judg­ment over me? What is the dif­fer­ence whether I say to this par­a­lytic, your sins are for­given, or arise, take up your bed, and walk? But that you who wit­ness all this may fi­nally know that the Son of Man has au­thor­ity and power on earth to for­give sins, I will say to this af­flicted man, Arise, take up your bed, and go to your own house.” And when Je­sus had thus spo­ken, the par­a­lytic arose, and as they made way for him, he walked out be­fore them all. And those who saw these things were amazed. Pe­ter dis­missed the as­sem­blage, while many prayed and glo­ri­fied God, con­fess­ing that they had never be­fore seen such strange hap­pen­ings.

153:3.6The Phar­i­saic com­mis­sion­ers of the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin were now al­most con­vinced that Je­sus must be ap­pre­hended on a charge of blas­phemy or on one of flout­ing the sa­cred law of the Jews; where­fore their ef­forts to in­volve him in the dis­cus­sion of, and pos­si­ble at­tack upon, some of the tra­di­tions of the el­ders, or so-called oral laws of the na­tion. No mat­ter how scarce wa­ter might be, these tra­di­tion­ally en­slaved Jews would never fail to go through with the re­quired cer­e­mo­nial wash­ing of the hands be­fore ev­ery meal. It was their be­lief that “it is bet­ter to die than to transgress the com­mand­ments of the el­ders.” The spies asked this ques­tion be­cause it had been re­ported that Je­sus had said, “Sal­va­tion is a mat­ter of clean hearts rather than of clean hands.” But such be­liefs, when they once be­come a part of one’s re­li­gion, are hard to get away from. Even many years af­ter this day the Apos­tle Pe­ter was still held in the bond­age of fear to many of these tra­di­tions about things clean and un­clean, only be­ing fi­nally de­liv­ered by ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an ex­traor­di­nary and vivid dream. All of this can the bet­ter be un­der­stood when it is re­called that these Jews looked upon eat­ing with un­washed hands in the same light as com­merce with a har­lot, and both were equally pun­ish­able by ex­com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

164:5.3Je­sus con­tin­ued his teach­ing: “Many lov­ing works have I shown you from the Fa­ther, so that now would I in­quire for which one of these good works do you think to stone me?” And then an­swered one of the Phar­isees: “For no good work would we stone you but for blas­phemy, inas­much as you, be­ing a man, dare to make your­self equal with God.” And Je­sus an­swered: “You charge the Son of Man with blas­phemy be­cause you re­fused to be­lieve me when I de­clared to you that I was sent by God. If I do not the works of God, be­lieve me not, but if I do the works of God, even though you be­lieve not in me, I should think you would be­lieve the works. But that you may be cer­tain of what I pro­claim, let me again as­sert that the Fa­ther is in me and I in the Fa­ther, and that, as the Fa­ther dwells in me, so will I dwell in ev­ery one who be­lieves this gospel.” And when the peo­ple heard these words, many of them rushed out to lay hands upon the stones to cast at him, but he passed out through the tem­ple precincts; and meet­ing Na­than­iel and Thomas, who had been in at­ten­dance upon the ses­sion of the San­hedrin, he waited with them near the tem­ple un­til Josiah came from the coun­cil cham­ber.

169:0.52. He is a blas­phe­mer; he talks about God as be­ing his Fa­ther and thinks he is equal with God.

184:5.7The only point the court could have con­sis­tently judged him on was that of blas­phemy, and that would have rested en­tirely on his own tes­ti­mony. Even con­cern­ing blas­phemy, they failed to cast a for­mal bal­lot for the death sen­tence.

186:2.7When be­fore Cai­a­phas, and when all the per­jured tes­ti­mony had bro­ken down, Je­sus did not hes­i­tate to an­swer the ques­tion of the chief priest, thereby pro­vid­ing in his own tes­ti­mony that which they de­sired as a ba­sis for con­vict­ing him of blas­phemy.

153:4.3Then said Je­sus: “How can Sa­tan cast out Sa­tan? A king­dom di­vided against it­self can­not stand; if a house be di­vided against it­self, it is soon brought to des­o­la­tion. Can a city with­stand a siege if it is not united? If Sa­tan casts out Sa­tan, he is di­vided against him­self; how then shall his king­dom stand? But you should know that no one can en­ter into the house of a strong man and de­spoil his goods ex­cept he first over­power and bind that strong man. And so, if I by the power of Beelze­bub cast out dev­ils, by whom do your sons cast them out? There­fore shall they be your judges. But if I, by the spirit of God, cast out dev­ils, then has the king­dom of God truly come upon you. If you were not blinded by prej­u­dice and mis­led by fear and pride, you would eas­ily per­ceive that one who is greater than dev­ils stands in your midst. You com­pel me to de­clare that he who is not with me is against me, while he who gath­ers not with me scat­ters abroad. Let me ut­ter a solemn warn­ing to you who would pre­sume, with your eyes open and with pre­med­i­tated mal­ice, know­ingly to as­cribe the works of God to the do­ings of dev­ils! Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, all your sins shall be for­given, even all of your blas­phemies, but whoso­ever shall blas­pheme against God with de­lib­er­a­tion and wicked in­ten­tion shall never ob­tain for­give­ness. Since such per­sis­tent work­ers of in­iq­uity will never seek nor re­ceive for­give­ness, they are guilty of the sin of eter­nally re­ject­ing di­vine for­give­ness.

165:3.6“Say what you will about the Son of Man, and it shall be for­given you; but he who pre­sumes to blas­pheme against God shall hardly find for­give­ness. When men go so far as know­ingly to as­cribe the do­ings of God to the forces of evil, such de­lib­er­ate rebels will hardly seek for­give­ness for their sins.